What's so amazing about God's grace?

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On several occasions you have said RCs love their church more than God.
How would you, a mortal man, know how much someone loves the church and someone loves God? Can you see into their hearts?
 
RubyT said:
On several occasions you have said RCs love their church more than God.
How would you, a mortal man, know how much someone loves the church and someone loves God? Can you see into their hearts?
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I wonder about it too:shrug:
 
RubyT said:
On several occasions you have said RCs love their church more than God.
How would you, a mortal man, know how much someone loves the church and someone loves God? Can you see into their hearts?
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I cannot read your hearts, nor can you read my heart. However, I can read your postings…🙂
 
Fourm sites are extremely limited in how we are able to communicate with each other. But God is much bigger than the limitations of the Internet. Good night everyone… and may God richly bless you because you know Him through Christ!
 
AshleyBelle said:
Reading does not, unfortunately, always equal understanding.
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Ashley–I didn’t get a chance to respond to you before the other thread closed, but this pertains extremely well to this thread as well: I quoted Romans 6:1ff-- “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
The point here is that if you follow Paul’s logic very carefully from Romans 5, you see something amazing. Look at what Paul says in the passage immediately before this one: “20The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
So what he is saying is this (I’ll just number the points, not tied to verse numbers though): 1.God gave the law so it would excite sin in people and they would know they need a Savior 2.No matter how much sin abounds, grace is greater and can abound more. 3. He implies in the very first verse at the top (6:1) that if a Christian (a true Christian) continues to sin, grace will in fact abound more. Read the verse. And finally, 4. It is ridiculous for Christians to go on sinning because they actually died in Christ and have been raised up (instantly, at conversion).
A lot to swallow, but Paul takes great pains to explain all this, yet most people don’t want to take the time to study it.
 
Martin777 said:
Ashley–I didn’t get a chance to respond to you before the other thread closed, but this pertains extremely well to this thread as well: I quoted Romans 6:1ff-- “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
The point here is that if you follow Paul’s logic very carefully from Romans 5, you see something amazing. Look at what Paul says in the passage immediately before this one: “20The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
So what he is saying is this (I’ll just number the points, not tied to verse numbers though): 1.God gave the law so it would excite sin in people and they would know they need a Savior 2.No matter how much sin abounds, grace is greater and can abound more. 3. He implies in the very first verse at the top (6:1) that if a Christian (a true Christian) continues to sin, grace will in fact abound more. Read the verse. And finally, 4. It is ridiculous for Christians to go on sinning because they actually died in Christ and have been raised up (instantly, at conversion).
A lot to swallow, but Paul takes great pains to explain all this, yet most people don’t want to take the time to study it.
Click to expand...
Martin,

I appreciate your great zeal and love for scripture:) Thank you for sharing your perspective on these passages… I can follow your train of thought well, and your interpreations do make “sense” and flow together in a way that shows how much prayer and study has gone into them. In other posts as well, you always do a wonderful job of articulating how you feel about scripture.
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 But I have to respectfully disagree with your interpretation here. I can understand and see how you would draw that conclusion from Paul's writings...but I find other portions of his writings that your interpretation would conflict with (for me..) and other portions of Scripture as a whole that support the Catholic view much more clearly.

Please understand that I am not putting down your ideas about scripture, but I think you illustrated an issue that is close to my heart. There are so many good interpretations out there...which is part of the reason so many churches are divided.  I do like your interpretation, but ultimately it comes down to "who do I trust?"  So many things can "sound" good, and prayerfully appear to be "right" from scripture..when they are not held to some accountable authority.  For me, I trust completely in the authority of the church established by Jesus...which I believe is the Catholic Church.

 Before I could ever be "convinced" that an interpretation contrary to the church's understanding of the scripture was "correct" would be for God to reveal that it is not His church.... But I know how hard He worked to bring me home to Rome, and I don't think it would be God's doing if I were led astray.

But thank you for sharing your perspective, and I want you to know that I really do enjoy reading your thoughts about the scriptures:)
Merry Christmas, and God bless!
 
AshleyBelle said:
Martin,

I appreciate your great zeal and love for scripture:) Thank you for sharing your perspective on these passages… I can follow your train of thought well, and your interpreations do make “sense” and flow together in a way that shows how much prayer and study has gone into them. In other posts as well, you always do a wonderful job of articulating how you feel about scripture.
Code: 
 But I have to respectfully disagree with your interpretation here. I can understand and see how you would draw that conclusion from Paul's writings...but I find other portions of his writings that your interpretation would conflict with (for me..) and other portions of Scripture as a whole that support the Catholic view much more clearly.

Please understand that I am not putting down your ideas about scripture, but I think you illustrated an issue that is close to my heart. There are so many good interpretations out there...which is part of the reason so many churches are divided.  I do like your interpretation, but ultimately it comes down to "who do I trust?"  So many things can "sound" good, and prayerfully appear to be "right" from scripture..when they are not held to some accountable authority.  For me, I trust completely in the authority of the church established by Jesus...which I believe is the Catholic Church.

 Before I could ever be "convinced" that an interpretation contrary to the church's understanding of the scripture was "correct" would be for God to reveal that it is not His church.... But I know how hard He worked to bring me home to Rome, and I don't think it would be God's doing if I were led astray.

But thank you for sharing your perspective, and I want you to know that I really do enjoy reading your thoughts about the scriptures:)
Merry Christmas, and God bless!
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Thanks for sharing so openly. All I can encourage you to do is to stay open to God’s Spirit. He will never fail you. And there are millions of Christians who have vibrant lives who understand Scripture very well through the Holy Spirit and the help of teachers God has gifted (Eph 4). Most importantly, they know for SURE that if they died tonight, they would wake up in heaven! “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”
God Bless and Merry Christmas!
 
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